Oven and AGA Cooker Cleaning - Bristol - Cardiff - Bath - Exeter - Cheltenham - Swindon - Devon

Best Selling AGA Cooker Colours

Here are the best selling AGA cooker colours over the last year. For me Claret has to be the best colour and having cleaned one recently I really like Pistachio it just looks great - so I'm not sure why it bottom of the list. Wedgewood Blue looks great in photographs in magazines but in the showroom looks just too blue, too rich I suppose. I'm surprised that Dark Blue is so far down the list as most AGAs we clean seem to be Dark Blue or Cream. I also like Aubergine it just looks fabulous. For me Pillar Box Red is the worst colour of the lot and really doesn't go with anything as to me it's out of date non colour - though it did look good in a 70s style house I saw recently, I think in a magazine, as the rest of the kitchen co-ordinated with it, formica tops in red to match and black and white checkered floor. Pewter to me is very subtle and it's difficult to tell the colour of it if are close up to it (cleaning it). So my list of colours to really think about when looking to buy an AGA cooker would be Claret, Pistachio, and Aubergine. But also consider the classic style AGA in cream.

1   Pewter

2= Cream
   

2=  Black

4   Claret

5    Classic Special Edition

6   British Racing Green

7   Pillar Box Red

8  Aubergine

9 Wedgewood

10 Dark Blue

11     Millennium Special Edition

12     Jade

13     Pistachio

AGA Shares Might be Worth Buying

Image via Wikipedia

There was an article in yesterday's Mail on Sunday titled:

_{MIDAS: AGA will recover as the economy grows warmer}

The article highlighted the fall in AGAs profits but suggested that they might just go up a great deal when the market recovers. I think this may be a good investment. Have a look at it yourself and you may want to buy some shares in the company too.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1213012/MIDAS.html#ixzz0R4Rrq2E4

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AGA In The Summer Equals A Very Hot Kitchen

Image by masaaki miyara via Flickr

It has been very hot here in the UK for the last few days and even hotter in our kitchen. The AGA cooker has been on all the time and I've noticed the thermometer reading in our kitchen has often been over 40C. So it has meant opening the back door fully open and opening the windows too.

We also decided to 'turn the AGA down' a couple of days ago and after doing this it now does seem to have made a difference to the heat in our kitchen. On the 30 Amp AGA, which we have, you can do this this easily by just turning the knob on the control dial. The only thing is it takes longer to cook things. But it didn't stop my wife cooking a really lovely Quorn cottage pie tonight.

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AGA Cooker or Stove Plinth

Image by Zacha Rosen via Flickr

I thought I'd make a comment about the plinth for the AGA cooker ((AGA stove if you are in the US). I have read on some forums that some people are trying to make difficult choices re the plinth for their AGA cooker and are thinking about not having one and the other thing is which type to get.

We have cleaned hundreds of AGA cookers over the years and only a few haven't had plinths. Most of these were original ones from the 1930s before fitted kitchen cabinets came along. The addition of the plinth is a modern addition to make the AGA higher and easier to use.

When AGA cookers haven't got a plinth the AGA really does look odd. I have seen one recently where the whole kitchen had been refurbished with new cabinets, new stone floor etc but the AGA was sitting there without a plinth looking quite peculiar.

To put this right would mean a complete strip down of the AGA, then some time to build the plinth (if concrete) or if you use a metal plinth then it would be just a case of putting it in and then the AGA would have to be rebuilt. So not an easy or cheap job.

So the AGA cooker really does need a plinth to get it to the same height as the kitchen cabinets.

So if you are thinking of not having a plinth please reconsider and have one.

So two tips for the AGA cooker plinth.

1. Measure the height of your kitchen cabinets and decide on how high you are going to have it (i.e the same height as your kitchen cabinets or slightly higher). If you are building it yourself from concrete make sure that you make it well before the installation day (I have built two concrete plinths for my AGAs and built both the night before the day of installation - though AGA recommend three days see AGA plinth data page. I used fast trying cement and in both cases the plinth was fine for the next day and nine years later is still fine. Although it has never been finished off so at the front it is still rough. It would benefit from the addition of tiles.

2. Think about the metal plinth. For my 30 Amp AGA I didn't build a plinth but I ordered a AGA metal one. The mat black painted one looks very smart and you don't have to worry about finishing it off once the AGA is fitted.

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AGA Cooker Enameller

Image by Rigadoon Glass via Flickr

I have just been informed that Hytech the AGA Enameller have changed their website to www.hytechenamellers.co.uk. So if you are looking to get your whole AGA cooker enamelled to look like new again then they are the people to contact on 01278 794481.

Hytech are based in Highbridge in Somerset  so it is just a case finding a plumber or an AGA specialist such as Spillers of Chard to take the bits off the AGA that need renamelling and then getting it to Hytech. They enamel bits or the whole AGA and they also can spray paint the sides to match the colour that you choose. The price I was given for the whole AGA was about £1400 (two years ago).

AGA Cooker Running Costs

Image via Wikipedia

I've just found this the offical AGA running costs. This has a date on it of August 2008.

The weekly running costs from this are:

2 Oven AGA Cooker (see their site for 3 oven and 4 oven running costs)

6 Ways To Reduce The Running Costs Of The AGA Cooker

Image by Ivydale via Flickr

Here are 6 ways to reduce the running costs of your AGA cooker:

1. Have the cheapest AGA cooker to run which is the 30 Amp AGA cooker which costs about £11 a week to run. The others cost about £25 a week to run with the 13 Amp maybe higher.

2. Fit AIMS to your AGA so you can program your AGA energy use - you can now fit retrospectively to GAS and OIL AGA cookers. See Discover the The New Smart Way to Programme Your AGA. Though as an aside I think they have spelt 'Programme' wrong. In the UK when we program in the computer sense it is spelt in the same as in the US. Perhaps they thought they are going to give the AGA a schedule and therefore it should be spelt 'Programme'.

3. Do not keep the lids up for long periods on the AGA as it looses heat. If you follow the standard AGA cooking rule of using the top for 20% of the cooking and the ovens for 80% then you are doing it right and the AGA will retain its heat. If you are spending all your time cooking on the top of the AGA then you are doing it wrong.

4.Turn it off in the Summer. It's lovely and hot today and in our kitchen where our 30 Amp AGA sits it is 40C. Hmm I must remember to open the door and windows. But if I really wanted to reduce the running costs I'd switch the AGA off.

5. Turn the AGA down. You may want to put it on a lower setting but this will mean that it will take longer to cook everything.

6. Get your AGA cooker cleaned and serviced regularly. Get the AGA cleaning carried out in the morning and then serviced in the afternoon.

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Do You Switch The AGA Cooker Off For Your Holiday?

Image via Wikipedia

What do you do with your AGA cooker if you are going off on your holidays?  The first thing you are going to do, of course, is make sure that you are going on a UK  AGA cottage holiday so you can have all the comforts of home whilst on holiday. :-)

So switching off the AGA cooker for the holiday period and the different types:

30 Amp AGA Cooker Charging?

Image via Wikipedia

The 30 Amp AGA has a feature where if the heat drops below a certain level (not sure what it is) then it will charge up to get the heat back in the daytime instead of waiting to the middle of the night when it normally charges up and uses cheap rate electricity.

We have had our 30 Amp AGA for 18 months and I can only remember a couple of times when the light has started flashing to say that it charging up in the daytime.  Once was a while ago I'm not sure how much cooking we had done that day and the other time was the other night as we had only just turned back on the night before after switching it off to clean it. We switched it off to clean it by switching off the power on the power switch and of course the timer has been affected. My wife had to stick her head into the kitchen cabinet next to the AGA to reset the timer again to make sure that it is working properly.

So in all if you are worried about the 30 Amp AGA charging up in the daytime I don' t think it would be a regular occurrence if you use the AGA properly with 20% of the cooking on top and 80% of the cooking inside the ovens.

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Win an AGA Cooker

I've just found this great win an AGA competition.

You need to go to the site and fill out your details. The answer to the question is 'Pale Blue'.

The question refers to the old colour name of the AGA colour when it was last  sold not the old name of 'Duck Egg Blue' which is confusing as if you are American you'd think it's 'Robin Egg Blue'. They should have asked "when this colour was previously used on an AGA what was it called?"

The Period Living magazine is a great magazine and I've been getting it every month for years as I've had it on subscription.

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